WH snubs GOP demand to explain Joe’s shifting story on Hunter

The White House ignored House Republican leaders who demanded answers this week about President Biden’s shifting public statements on his son Hunter’s foreign business interests.

GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) pressed White House counsel Stuart Delery in a July 20 letter about national security and ethics implications if the president was involved in any global wheeling and dealing.

“President Biden and official White House spokespersons have said repeatedly that the President had no knowledge of his son’s business, nor did he discuss business with his son,” the GOP lawmakers wrote. “However, on June 29, 2023, Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s office, released a statement saying, ‘As we have said many times before, the President was not in business with his son.’

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“This statement deviates from previous White House statements and brings forward concerns that the President knew of his son’s foreign business deals,” they said, asking for a response from the counsel’s office by Thursday.

“No matter how many times the White House desperately tries to cover up for Joe Biden, it is an indisputable fact that the White House has changed its position on Joe Biden’s knowledge of and involvement in Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings,” Stefanik told The Post. 

“The Biden Administration’s continued stonewalling of House Republicans’ investigations into the Biden family influence peddling scheme and Joe Biden’s involvement will not deter us,” she added. “We will leave no stone unturned and use every tool at our disposal to deliver accountability.”

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Sams did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

On Thursday, Stefanik called for a presidential impeachment inquiry, telling Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo that she would “absolutely” support the proceedings.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested the same earlier this week.

Comer and Smith have combed through 14 years of bank records from various “shell companies” and deposed several federal investigators as part of their probe into Hunter Biden’s alleged financial crimes and influence-peddling abroad.

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In May, Comer revealed nine Biden family members had profited from one deal Hunter struck with a corrupt Romanian oligarch when Joe was vice president. 

Through depositions of lead IRS agents on Hunter’s five-year tax investigation, Smith also showed that Hunter used his dad as leverage to close a lucrative deal with an energy executive whose firm had ties to the Chinese government.

IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler testified to Congress earlier this month that the first son and his associates raked in $17.3 million between 2014 and 2019 from entities in Ukraine, Romania and China, with Hunter alone scooping up $8.3 million.

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The revelations came after Ziegler and his boss, IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley, made protected whistleblower disclosures to the Ways and Means Committee about the Justice Department interfering in the case and blocking charging attempts by Delaware US Attorney David Weiss.

Meanwhile, an FBI informant file released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) earlier this month stated that Hunter and Joe “coerced” Burisma Holdings owner Mykola Zlochevksy to pay them $10 million in exchange for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating the company.

The House GOP lawmakers asked whether Biden, 80, knew of, was involved in or was compensated for any of the deals with foreign nationals.

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They also asked whether federal prosecutors looked into Hunter’s July 30, 2017, WhatsApp message to CEFC China Energy’s Raymond Zhao. The first son said he was “sitting” in the same room with his father and threatened the businessman if a “commitment” between the parties was not honored.

“The American people must have confidence that the President of the United States is not compromised by foreign interests,” Stefanik, Jordan, Comer and Smith wrote in their letter.

On Wednesday, Hunter Biden saw his slap-on-the-wrist plea deal implode in a Wilmington federal court after a judge accused the Justice Department of wanting her to “rubber-stamp” a blanket immunity protection for the first son.